


since i was born

by takecourage



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 5+1, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Body Horror, Cancer, Depression, Dissociation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mary Keay's A+ Parenting, Michael Shelley being a sweetheart, No beta we die like archival assistants, Non-Binary Gerard Keay, Substance Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, a light sprinkling of ABBA, going to a gig instead of dealing with your problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:16:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27605467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takecourage/pseuds/takecourage
Summary: Five times in Gerry Keay's life when they didn't cry, and one time they did.
Relationships: Gerard Keay & Gertrude Robinson, Gerard Keay & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	since i was born

_"did i ever stand a chance_

_when you wouldn't let me grow?_

_(and every night I've spent, I've spent unloved)"_

— i never breathed in, the elijah

I.

Gerry is fifteen and elbow-deep in boiling water and terrible washing up liquid, stood shaking in front of a sink full of knives. The water is slowly turning red. They are trying not to cry.

Their hoodie sleeves, dark but faded, keeping slipping down their arms, the cuffs dipping into the reddening water. They push them back up using their waist and carrying on cleaning. They are trying not cry.

They can feel their mum’s eyes boring into a spot just to the left of them, just over their head, but never at them, not directly. They heard her come into the kitchen, heard a chair scrape against the floor, going back and then forward. They can always feel her eyes just past them, they can always feel her presence no matter where they are or what they do; it’s like the walls start closing in around them when she moves. She does not say anything but they are afraid, anyway. Afraid they might be doing something wrong, afraid they might do something wrong, afraid they’ve already done something wrong. They start scrubbing harder and a fresh streak of red blooms under the soap bubbles. The water is so hot it’s hard to feel anything else. They get sent away for _some peace and quiet_ or find (steal) books that make their head spin and the walls weep. They come back, bloodied and bruised no matter what, and mum doesn’t care. If there’s ever love in her eyes when she looks in Gerry’s, it’s because she’s really looking at herself. Their hands are screaming at them, and long past the point of being able to grit their teeth and _just deal with it, Gerard,_ they pull them out of the water, their fingers curling into their palms. There are white hot flashes of stinging pain all over their skin as the cold air of the kitchen sinks its teeth in, and there is blood streaming through their clenched fingers, vivid scarlet against their flushed and wet hands, dripping into the sink.

“Mum, I—” they start, half-turning to face her, before their jaw snaps shut, a subconscious self-preservation instinct. Mum hates it when they bother her, years on years of _not now_ and _stop bothering me (_ and _you’re asking for it now_ when they wouldn’t stop crying, and _I’ll give you something to cry about,_ so they try not to cry; crying gets them hurt) _._

She’s looking at them like a fox looks at a rabbit, perfectly still, never betraying when she’ll lunge for their throat, and she will. She always does. Gerry stares back at her, too afraid to break eye contact, to show weakness. Mum hates that about them, that they’re weak. Mum hates a lot of things about them — they look too much like their dad, for one. Mum only ever talks about their dad when she’s drunk, watching the space above the telly and sinking into the sofa, and Gerry will try to slip past her to get to the kitchen, hands pressed against their stomach to stop it growling (she said she would make dinner; they don’t know why they still believe her), and her bony fingers will too-tightly curl around their bony wrist, and she’ll say _you look just like your father_ , and they will nod and agree with all the awful things she says about him, about them, about the _men_ in her life until she lets them go. They will dart into the kitchen, grab whatever food they can, shove it under their hoodie, dart back to the relative safety of their room, and try not cry.

“What’ve you done now?” Her voice is soft, and Gerry has learned the hard way that the softer that voice is, the more danger they’re in. Her eyes flit to their hand, now cradled against their chest with blood smudged between their fingers, and in that brief moment where her eyes are not staring into theirs, it’s like they can breathe. They have no idea what the Buried is like, but they imagine it feels something like looking into mum’s eyes.

They swallow. It doesn’t help. They are not going to start crying now, not after everything.

“Gerard,” she says, soft and sharp all at once, and they cringe at the sound. She does not miss it. She does not miss anything. “What have you done now.” It’s not a question anymore. They are not going to start crying.

Their words won’t come out right, jamming like marbles in their throat. “It’s— It’s prob— I-It’s prob—”

“Stop stuttering.” She does not snap. She speaks calmly. It scares them more.

They swallow, harder, painfully, as if anything in the world could get rid of the lump in their throat. “Nothing. I-It’s prob—” there’s no air in their lungs “—probably nothing,” they just about manage to choke out, just about managing to not gasp for breath. Mum says nothing, just stares. Her eyes are so cold. “I think I—” they can’t breathe “—I think I, I think I, I think I—” it’s like the words physically hurt them, and they can see mum’s eyes narrow in annoyance “—c-cut myself, washing, washing up.” Their speech is strained, awkward, every syllable too big and too clunky to fit comfortably in their mouth, and their fear is starting to strangle them.

“Got there eventually.” Mum smiles. It is not a nice smile (it is never a nice smile). “Let me see.” She leans back, not relaxing but indicating they should come to her. They do so slowly, feeling like they’re walking into a lion’s den.

She gives them a look, and they hesitantly stretch out their weeping hand. They move too slowly for her, though, because she sighs and snatches at their wrist, grabbing hold of their hand and holding just over her lap, prising their fingers open and looking at the (zig-zagging, too deep in some places and too shallow in others) cuts on their palm. The water still on their hands mingles with the blood smudged and pooling on their skin, and steadily drips onto mum’s skirt. They’re incredibly grateful she decided to wear black today.

Water and blood and guilt-soaked fear. It feels… religious, almost. They’ve even got their very own Mother Mary _,_ they think half-dryly and half-hysterically — the one time they went to church was to steal a book the priest had tucked away in his bag. It lit the candles and made the shadows dance and evaporated all the holy water, it melted part of Gerry’s jacket onto their skin when they grabbed it but they didn’t (or couldn’t) stop running. Before that, though, they had slunk into the church, sat at the very back, alone on an uncomfortable pew, and listened to the priest speak in theatrically hushed tones about rebirth and baptism and suffering and what would happen if they were to do something wrong. But Gerry already knew what would happen if they did something wrong; their jaw still ached from it. They knew to be afraid. The priest would insinuate Hell, and guiltily, at the back of their mind, Gerry thought they were already there.

“You’re making a fuss out of nothing,” she says dismissively, batting their hand away. They can barely clench their fist without seeing black spots dance across their vision. “How many times have I told you to just deal with it? How many times?”

They can’t figure out if the question is supposed to be rhetorical or not, the pain in their hand coming in crashing, alternating waves of dull ache and flaring agony. “T-too, too, too many t-ti-times?” They stutter, their voice a tiny and trembling thing, hiding in their throat.

She nods, and there might be a hint of a smile somewhere around her lips. “Too many times. Make yourself useful and finish the washing up.”

They do, and it hurts so badly all they can manage is to keep breathing. Mum stays put, ever watching the space around them. The soapy and bloodied water, cooled slightly but not enough to stop stinging what little of their hands that remained intact the first time around, rushes into their cuts almost gleefully, and the knives are only too eager to slice them open again. It hurts. It hurts so much the room starts spinning. It hurts so much the room starts spinning and mum doesn’t care. They don’t know why they aren’t used to this. They try not to cry.

II.

Gerry is eighteen and ordering and re-ordering a bookshelf in the shop with no real direction. Mum is watching the space around them. They feel like crying, but they don’t really know why. They won’t, anyway.

Their knuckles are bruised and swollen, heavy bruises around both eyes, and the tell-tale healing cut of a recently broken nose gashed between them. Something had put up a fight, and it wasn’t them. They take out a book at random, bound in real leather, although old and cracked, the lettering on the binding picked out in gold, and carefully put it at the end of the row. The past week feels like a rapidly fading bad dream, at least in the daylight.

They used to have bad dreams all the time as a kid. They’d wake up screaming, desperately crying out for mum to come and save them. She never did. When it got bad enough, they’d run down the dark corridor to her bedroom, feeling every evil and twisted thing running right behind them, shake her awake, tears pouring down their little face. If they were lucky, which they rarely were, they’d get sent back to bed with a slap and that would be the end of it. They don’t really (want to) remember what happened otherwise.

Really, they ought to have more nightmares now, but they don’t. Like their head decided real life was enough of a nightmare already. They’re grateful for it. They tend to find themselves being grateful for a lot of things they shouldn’t be grateful for.

The bell sounds as the door opens, soft and trilling. They think they should get it replaced for something more fitting, like an air raid siren. A man walks in, so tall he has to duck under the door frame, dressed in an immaculate, dark three-piece suit. He moves like flowing water and he seems to pour inside the little shop, filling it up and threatening to drown them all.

“Adley,” mum says coolly.

“Mary. So lovely to see you again.” The bell sounds again as the door swings shut, trapping them inside. “How many years has it been, now?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Of course not.” He trails a finger along the nearest bookshelf, as if looking for dust. Gerry prays he doesn’t find it.

They try to make themselves invisible, hiding behind their hair, but feel the back of their neck prickle anyway.

“Is this your son?” Adley asks. Gerry tries to hide their wince. _Son._ Mum doesn’t like them talking about it, doesn’t like them making a fuss about nothing.

She nods. “My Gerard.” There’s no pride, no love in her voice, just acknowledgment.

“Eric not around?” There’s a laugh in his voice that can’t be anything other than cruel. It takes Gerry a second to realise that he’s talking about their dad, and then it takes everything in them to not force the man outside and tell them everything they knew—what did he sound like, what did he laugh at, did his smile reach his eyes? Why didn’t he run when he had the chance? “At the Institute, still?”

“He’s dead,” she replies, that same cruel laugh ringing louder and sharper.

“So sorry.” He doesn’t sound it. “Natural causes, I presume?”

“In a way.” Her smile is cruel, her eyes gleaming with malice.

Gerry clenches their jaw and ducks behind a shelf, shaking. The way she’s talking is making their skin crawl, revulsion clawing its way up their throat — what the fuck does she mean, _in a way?_ Something inside them starts burning, something like hate, but not exactly. They can never quite manage hate towards mum, and it drives them insane. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe.

“I believe I have something that might interest you.”

And as he reaches into his pocket, Gerry bolts, the bell ringing wildly as the door slams shut behind them.

They walk around aimlessly for a while, shivering in the cold and toying with the fantasy of just catching a bus, a train, anything, and getting out of this waking nightmare they’d found themselves in and _staying_ out — they did that sometime last year; they lived in a questionable hotel until they couldn’t afford to, then under bridges and bus shelters and on stranger’s sofas for two weeks, drifting from place to place until they ended up in Derby, the place where hope goes to die a quiet and uneventful death. They came back home with blond roots showing through their black hair, a knife in their pocket, and an overwhelming sense of being _lost;_ they just couldn’t deal with how… normal everything was. No eldritch horrors lurking around the corners, no books that filled their mouth with dirt or the taste of ozone, no blood and no water and a different, shallower kind of fear. Mum didn’t even notice they’d been gone, just said _I thought I was getting too much peace and quiet._ But they’re older now, arguably wiser, and they want out again.

Whoever the fuck Adley might be, his words are still buzzing around Gerry’s head — _at the Institute, still?_ They assume this must be The Magnus Institute: they’d come across the name often enough, doing mum’s insane research at the local library. At least, when she used to let them go. Turns out leaving a teenager alone in a library for hours at a time when everyone else was in school was enough to give the librarian an attack of conscience and discreetly call social services. Mum banned them after that. And besides, if their dad did work at The Magnus Institute, it would explain why mum seemed to hate it so much. They could go there, even if all they did was stand outside. It’s like an itch, just under their skin. They want to _know._

They pull out a cigarette and ask a stranger for a lighter; they don’t need it, but it’s nice to talk to someone who isn’t mum or trying to kill them once in a while. They stand under a bus shelter for a while, watching the buses and people come and go as they smoke, the nicotine starting to take the edge off their headache, relaxing them a little. They could just leave. They want to just leave. They are going to _just leave_.

Finishing their cigarette, they get on the next bus that pulls up, fumbling with their Oyster card before collapsing into a seat near the back, fiddling with the hair bobble around their wrist. They stare out the window, watching London tick by, wishing they’d had the foresight to bring their earphones. They search their brain for a song they know back to front, but all they’re supplied with is Waterloo by ABBA. It’ll have to do.

Twenty minutes later and they’re humming the chorus under their breath, much to the annoyance of the presumably-businessman sat in the seat opposite them, when they spot a building with _The Magnus Institute_ carved in black over the doors _._ They hit the stop button so fast they nearly punch the old woman sat in front of them. The bus driver gives them a filthy look as they scramble off, but they presume that’s just because they have the nerve to look any happier than suicidally miserable in London.

Standing in front of the building, they can’t help but feel they should’ve stayed on the bus. There’s a strange gravity to the place, like it’s slowly pulling everything around it closer and closer, into the dark. It reminds them of mum’s bookshop, which is by no stretch of the imagination a good thing, but they can’t just walk away now, not when they’re so close. They want to know about their dad and not just to spite mum anymore. They take a deep breath, tying their hair back into a ponytail (like they do when they know a fight is just around the corner, when they need to run), and walk inside.

It’s surprisingly light for how imposing it is on the outside, with polished wooden floors and wide windows, and so _warm,_ a blessed relief from the bitter cold. They wonder if anyone would notice them living in one of the plant pots, carefully positioned around the edges of the room.

They hesitantly walk up the reception desk, half expecting the woman sat behind it to suddenly grow too many teeth and try and bite their head off. She doesn’t, but instead asks:

“How can I help?”

She seems normal enough, with her dark curly hair and pink blouse, and she hasn’t tried to kill them yet, so they’ll take it. She even does a little double take when she sees their very bruised face, which is a nice reminder that not everyone is as violent as they can be. “I’m looking for the archives?”

“Oh!” She says, brightening. “Are you one of our uni students?”

“Yes,” they say, probably too quickly, silently praying that this is the right thing to say. They really should’ve done some research before just waltzing through the front door. Maybe mum was right, maybe—

“Right. I’ll just look you up on the system…” She taps at her keyboard, her long nails clacking against the keys. Gerry can feel their palms start sweating. Even in this room, with its high ceilings and tastefully Feng Shui’d furniture, they’re starting to get a bit claustrophobic. “What’s your name?”

They take a deep breath, smile, and say, “I don’t think I’ll be on there. I only just transferred to London Met and they haven’t sorted all my stuff out yet.”

She looks at them, frowning, then back at her screen. “I’m sorry, but—”

“Please?” They say, letting desperation creep into their voice. Not enough that her suspicion that they’re lying is confirmed, but enough to make her feel bad about not feeling sorry for them. “I really can’t afford to get any further behind.”

She bites her lip, but still doesn’t look convinced.

In a sudden burst of inspiration, they say, “My dad died.” Well, it _is_ true. “He got cancer and I had to drop out to look after him. I’ve only just got back in to uni and…” They let themselves trail off, wiping away an imaginary tear. “Sorry,” they say, smiling shakily, sounding fragile enough so that she thinks they might burst into tears at any second.

“Oh, you poor love,” she says, any trace of suspicion vanished. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, they’re a lovely bunch down there.” They nearly laugh at that. “I’ll just print your visitor’s badge.”

In the awkward couple of minutes it takes for the printer to cough out the shiny little paper badge, she says, “My grandma had cancer too. It’s awful. If you don’t mind me asking, what kind…?”

They dither for a second, before answering, “brain.” It seems like the most devastating.

Her hand flutters up to rest at the base of her throat. “Oh you poor, poor love.” She hands them the badge, instructing them to put it on their hoodie (“really, you ought to get a proper coat, you’ll freeze”), and not to take it off until they left the building. Apparently, the boss gets a bit touchy about that kind of thing. She points them towards the stairs, and tells them to keep going down until they can’t anymore. “Look after yourself,” she says with a genuinely kind smile as they turn to leave.

“You too,” they say, adding a slightly melodramatic sniff. They don’t have to fake sounding close to tears now, though.

They actually feel quite bad about manipulating her like that, an insidious guilt crawling up their throat. But they want to know about their dad so badly it almost balances out. They think of her smile all the way down to the Archives.

The stairs give way to a door, which is much heavier than it looks, that gives way to a corridor with three more doors, each with a little metal plaque declaiming _LIBRARY, STAFF ROOM,_ and _ARCHIVES_ respectively _._ Gerry tests the handle; it’s not locked, just heavy (and it’s not like such a small thing as a locked door has ever stopped them, anyway). They tug a few strands of their hair down, framing their face, hoping it makes them look a bit softer and a bit less don’t-fuck-with-me — they imagine the two black eyes and all the black clothes aren’t exactly helping. If they could walk through the front door and get waved through with a half-baked sob story and no plan whatsoever, then this might actually work. They just want to know about their dad from someone who doesn’t hate either him or them.

They slip through a little office room, completely deserted, which sends alarm bells ringing loud and clear, but they didn’t come all this way to give up now. They push through another door and find themselves wandering around the archives for what feels like days, but is in reality about five minutes, before someone (someone with a blond mess of curls and big doe eyes and dressed in an objectively hideous yellow jumper, taller than Gerry but only just) rushes up to them, saying, “Excuse me, members of the public aren’t actually allowed down—”

“Can you help me?” They cut him off, their voice coming out slightly more desperate than they intended.

He looks offended for half a second before relaxing, just a little. “Oh, are you here to make a statement?”

They shake their head. “I’m looking for— well, not looking for, exactly, more asking after, Eric…” they trail off, suddenly struck with the twisting, knife-sharp realisation that they still don’t know their own dad’s last name. It wouldn’t be Keay; they’re sure their dad wouldn’t mar himself with it (not that mum would’ve allowed it, anyway).

“Eric Delano?” He offers, his eyebrows knitting together.

They’ve read the name somewhere, they’re sure of it, somewhere they weren’t supposed to (or they haven’t, and they’re just desperately grasping at straws). “Yeah.” They roll the name around in their mind. _Eric Delano._ It sounds right. It sounds… good (or it’s just the only option they’ve been given and they want to believe it so badly they’ll go along with any half-remembered dreams or words or snippets of things they shouldn’t have overheard).

“Eric Delano’s dead,” he says, not unkindly, but not without an edge.

“Yeah, I know.” It shouldn’t really confirm anything, but right now, it’s enough. The man goes to say something, but Gerry swiftly cuts them off, “I’m his… kid.”

That takes him aback. “Sorry, what?”

“Eric Delano is—was—my dad. I think.”

“Wait.” They can practically hear his brain stop, start, and kick into overdrive. “Are you Gerard Keay?”

They wonder if they should start running. “Yeah.”

His face seems to fall through all seven stages of grief in about three seconds flat. “Well, fuck me. Sorry. Okay. Right.” He looks at Gerry again, searchingly. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus Christ. Gerard Keay.” A smile tugs at the corners of his lips (it suits him). “Eric used to talk about you all the time. Drove us all mad with his millions of baby pictures.” His tiny smile breaks out into a grin. “You were a very cute baby.”

“Wonder what happened,” they answer dryly (trying to pretend like they aren’t seconds away from grabbing hold of the terrible-jumper-wearing man in front of them and making him tell them everything he knows about _Eric Delano)_ and to their relief, he laughs.

“Come with me,” he says, nodding his head towards the door. “Ms Robinson’ll go spare if she sees we’ve got a random goth hanging around.”

“Thanks?”

“Don’t mention it.” He smiles. It is such an overwhelmingly _nice_ smile. “I’m Michael, by the way.”

“Hi, Michael By The Way.”

He smiles again, but it’s a little sadder this time. “Your dad made that exact same joke when I first met him, too.”

It hurts, but in the best way; like a flower forcing its way through the cracks in the pavement, a little flash of something new _._

Gerry ends up stealing someone called Sarah’s chair and dragging it over to Michael (By The Way)’s desk, watching him dig through his drawers for a photo of them — them being the all archival assistants — together, listening to Michael talk about their dad and hanging on to every single word.

Their dad, according to Michael, was the last bit of soul the Archives had left. Everyone loved him, so much so that they only learned Ms Robinson, the Archivist, was capable of smiling because of him — he had made a particularly terrible joke on a particularly long car journey, apparently so bad Michael _had to literally rinse his brain out to get rid of it_ , and Ms Robinson had actually cracked a smile.

“Instant hero status, honestly,” Michael laughs (he has such a nice laugh). “We all genuinely thought she was physically incapable.”

They don’t say anything because if they open their mouth, they’ll ruin it.

Michael half-turns towards them. “What happened to your face, by the way? Looks pretty impressive.”

(A woman, talking backwards, her eyes flashing neon pink and yellow and green, static filling their ears as they try to grab the book and run, her fist connecting with their nose so hard they see stars, and those stars are filling up the room, the cover of the book turning into an undefined mess of spirals that spread out infinitely and they can’t remember how to breathe, how to speak, where they are, _who_ they are. A woman, crying out in all too human agony as Gerry’s knife sinks into her hand, pinning it to the table — _it was meant for the book it was meant for the book they didn’t mean to_ _they_ _didn’t_ — but while she screams, the noise so low they can only feel it and so high it makes their ears bleed — they shove the book in their bag and practically throw themselves out the door, landing in a dazed heap on the pavement. The blood on their hands. The blade of their knife impossibly twisted into a spiral. The hours it took them to get back home because they kept walking in circles. The way mum’s eyes light up when they get back, and the way they’re too old to pretend it’s for them and not for the book in their hands)

They’re suddenly very, very tired. Like it’s seeping into their bones. “Fell."

“What, off a cliff?”

They shrug. “Something like that.”

Michael gives them a look they don’t fully understand, and then softly says, “your dad loved you, you know.” _(should that hurt so much? It does; it aches)_ “Quit to take care of you. You should’ve seen him the day he found out your mum was pregnant — I’ve never seen anyone so happy in my life.” He pulls out a photo from under a mountain of paper and highlighters, the silver frame tarnished, with an _ah-ha!_ “That’s him,” he says triumphantly, pointing to a tall man with a pair of felt antlers crammed over a mess of dark blond hair (the colour theirs goes when the dye starts fading), wearing a blue shirt and a hideous flowery tie and an actual _cardigan_ , one arm draped over the shoulders of a much younger Michael and the other around a man who barely comes up to his chin, a vacant, lazy grin on his face. They’re all smiling and all their smiles reach their eyes. “Christmas party a few years ago. Elias—” he taps the short man “—nearly set fire to artefact storage about ten minutes after this was taken. Good times.” He shakes his head fondly. “And now he runs the place.”

They barely hear him, staring at their dad. He looks… happy, almost blissfully so, his cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkling. They strain their memory for any recollection of him (of happiness), but come up blank. They want to step into the photo and know what it means to be loved, because _your dad loved you_ is the closest they’ve ever gotten. They wonder if their dad would’ve been alright with it, with the person they turned out to be. They wonder if they would’ve liked their dad enough to tell him to call them Gerry.

They mean to say thank you, but it comes out as, “I can’t believe my dad’s wearing a cardigan.”

Michael laughs. “Oh, he absolutely loved a cardigan. I think he collected them, along with those awful ties.”

Gerry tries to laugh along, but they can’t. Their chest is aching.

“Have it,” Michael says suddenly, shoving the photo at them, making them flinch.

They look at him, trying to judge whether it’s a trick or not, and then back at the photo. They want it so badly it feels like they _need_ it, and it must be plastered all over their face. They aren’t, for once, afraid that it’ll bury them or drown them or rot them from the inside out, but this is something mum does — dangle something they want right in front of them until they grab at it, then punish them for trying to take it. Michael doesn’t seem like the type _(to be cruel_ , is the first thing that comes to their head, and they gouge that thought out from their head as best they can. — mum isn’t _cruel,_ they’re just weak, she always tells them they’re just weak) to do something like that, but if they’ve learnt nothing, they’ve learnt that things are not always what they seem.

“Not the frame I mean, frames are so expensive, but the actual photo.”

Despite themselves, a small smile spreads across their face. No, Michael doesn’t really seem like the type (to be cruel), he just seems like… well, a bit of dork, really, but he carries it well — it’s quite sweet. “Okay.” And they take the photo in their shaking hands, scared to touch it, to mess it up. Their dad smiles back at them and they are dangerously close to tears.

“Is Mary… Do you live with your mum, I mean?”

They smooth over their expression, a trick they learned when they were probably too young, and nod.

“Is she still…” he trails off delicately. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what he’s thinking.

“Dunno what you mean.”

“Huh. Times change, I guess.” He pauses, awkwardly. “You should probably head home. She’ll be worried about you.”

Despite it being one of the funniest things they’ve ever heard, they just about manage to not burst out laughing. Just about.

They end up on the bus, slightly dazed, the photo of their dad tucked safely in their pocket. Michael had to smuggle them out of the Institute and then insisted on walking them to the nearest bus stop, waiting with Gerry until it arrived. They want to be grateful for it, they really do, but they’re very rapidly approaching _completely overwhelmed_ — they’re so sure Michael’s going to start growing too many eyes, or suddenly lunge for their throat (or just decide they’ve done something wrong and slap them into the middle of next week, or snatch the photo of their dad back and rip it up and laugh), it makes them feel dizzy when he doesn’t, but instead waves to them as the bus pulls away.

(Gerry kind of wanted to hug him, but a hug is a good way of getting a knife in the ribs).

The bell over the door of Pinhole Books rings as they go inside. The lights are off downstairs, but soft, gold light is spilling out from the flat door, a halo with nothing beneath it. It’s quiet.

They walk up the stairs, their legs feeling heavy and their heart feeling heavier. Maybe it’d be easier to just gouge out that too. Let it rot. Be unfeeling and empty forever, instead of just some of the time. A shell with badly dyed hair and no heart and no brain and no dad. They want to laugh, but for the second time that day, they can’t.

Mum is sat at the table, silently waiting for them, as they close the door quietly behind them. They nearly jump out of their skin — seeing her, although not exactly a welcome sight, isn’t the scary part. The scary part is the fact that the table is laid with two plates of gently steaming pasta, swimming in a red sauce, knives and forks placed precisely beside them. Looks like she’s finally decided to give in and actually poison them, then.

“Sit down,” she says, her voice quiet, gesturing at the table. “Dinner’s ready.”

As a kid, this was all they wanted. They don’t want it anymore. They want to run.

“There’s Coke in the fridge.” She’s smiling. Why is she smiling? What have they done?

They move robotically, taking too long to register what it is they’re doing. They take down two glasses, half-checking them for any cracks, and pour out two drinks, hands trembling. They stare at the glasses as they pour. They don’t notice mum’s glass overflowing, spilling onto the counter. By the time they realise, half the bottle is gone. They swear under their breath, hastily grabbing the nearest cloth and doing their best to wipe it up.

“I’m getting older here, Gerard,” she calls, her voice singsong.

“Sorry, sorry,” they mutter. She won’t be able to hear them, but they can never shake the fear she’s aways listening. They pour a little of the overflowing drink into their glass. It won’t be right.

They turn back towards the table, the coke sloshing around and over the rim. They can’t stop their hands shaking.

“Finally,” she says with a sigh as they place the drinks down as best they can, sitting down quickly. She raises her eyebrows at their half-empty glass.

“I’m… not thirsty,” they mumble, fiddling with the sleeves of their hoodie.

She doesn’t say anything in response and, too early, they let out a silent sigh of relief.

“Looks,” they have to swallow, hard. “Looks good.”

“I didn’t make it.” She shrugs.

“Right,” they say, picking up their fork. It shakes, too. _Of course you didn’t make it,_ they think, _that might mean you care._

They chew in silence for a while. Chewing, the steady, maddening ticking of the clock, the scrape of metal against porcelain. It feels like that’s all they’re going to hear for the rest of time.

“What did you get up to today?” She asks. It’s a normal question, so why do they feel like hiding? “After you ran away.”

“I didn’t—” they start, stopping themselves almost instantly as she raises an eyebrow. “I went… I went to the park.”

“Which park?”

“I don’t, I don’t know. Didn’t look at-at-at the sign.” As answers go, it’s terrible, but she believes they’re stupid enough for it to be true.

She rolls her eyes but lets it slide, as they knew (prayed) she would. “What did you do at the park?”

Every single nerve in their body is on fire. “Just… just, just kind of…” they swallow again. It’s getting harder and harder to talk. “Walked around,” they finish lamely.

“Gripping,” she says dryly, through a mouthful of food. It makes them feel a bit sick.

They drop their gaze back to their plate, pushing their food around with their fork. They aren’t that hungry anymore.

“Aren’t you going to ask about me?”

They freeze, unable to look up at her. “W-What, what did you do today?” They have to force the words out, slowly and painfully.

“I wish you’d stop forcing that stutter.” It’s the kindest they’ve ever heard her sound. “I got us another Leitner.”

They make a noise they hope sounds interested instead of scared. They imagine the book, thin, nondescript, plain black cover until it was touched, then it would explode into thousands of iridescent swirls and spirals, shifting with and without the light all at once. They imagine burning it.

“You could look a bit more cheerful.”

“Sorry,” they stammer out, trying to rearrange their features into something resembling cheer. It does not work. They know they should ask about it, keep her talking, but they can’t. They can’t do a lot of things (not right, anyway).

“You know, you’re a lot like your father. He was a useless conversationalist as well.” She takes a sip of her drink, and Gerry feels something very strongly akin to anger bubbling under their skin. She’s doing this deliberately. She never talks about their dad unless she’s drunk. She’s doing this to hurt them, to push them far enough that she has an excuse to lash out. They won’t give it to her. “Generally useless, actually.” They risk a glance at her face. She is smiling. It is not (it is never) a nice smile.

They clench their fists under the table.

“I could tell you wanted to ask Adley about him,” she carries on, still smiling. “There’s not a lot to say.”

If they stay silent, they might be able to trick her into telling them more than she means to. They just have to stay calm, not visibly reacting to her no matter what.

“He was incredibly boring. Very safe,” she says, as if _safe_ is something to be sneered at. Gerry wouldn’t know. They’ve never felt it. “But somehow always in the way.” They can feel her eyes on them, hear that awful smile in her voice. “Especially when it came to you.”

Gerry’s heart leaps for a spilt-second and they forget their forced neutrality, looking her dead in the eyes, and just like that, they’re trapped.

“That doesn’t mean he _cared!_ ” She says, gleefully patronising.

If she’d tried to do this to them when they were younger, they would’ve fallen for it. But not now, not with the photo of their dad tucked away in their pocket. If they had felt ashamed, guilty, before, they can only feel burning anger now, like they’re filling up with it, like they’ll overflow with it, like there’s fire in their veins, their blood catching light, scorching their bones; and it burns away whatever leftover obligated love they might’ve felt towards her, leaving nothing but _hate_ in its wake. They imagine the whole kitchen going up in flames. They imagine running away and being able to stay away.

“Don’t—” they start, grabbing the edge of the table, and mum’s eyes light up. They’re so angry they forget to be afraid.

“Don’t what, Gerard?” Her voice, silky-soft and deadly. They can feel themselves start to shake all over. They feel like they’re about to die. “Don’t what?”

Their dad, the last bit of soul the archives had left. Their dad, announcing the news that his wife was pregnant to the archives with a huge grin on his face, radiating joy. Their dad, driving his co-workers to distraction with endless baby pictures. Their dad, quitting his job where he was _loved_ to help raise Gerry. Their dad, dead.

“Did you kill him?”

“Yes,” she says casually, like they’re discussing the fucking _weather_.

“Fuck you,” they snap, their fury surging through them, destroying everything in its wake.

For a moment, there is only the ticking of the clock.

“What did you just say to me.” It sounds like bones breaking, like a body hitting the concrete.

They falter, but not enough. _“Fuck you.”_

She makes a sudden lunge at them and they jump back, barely able to stay on their feet as their chair goes clattering to the floor, knocking the table and sending the drinks spilling everywhere.

“Look what you’ve done now.” Her voice is utterly deadly, and it’s not so much the words they’re afraid of, more the sound of them, the way she comes closer with each syllable, moving like a snake, and they need to apologise, need to run, but their anger keeps them rooted in place; it’s like there are knives under their skin, jostling to be the first ones out.

Mum has to reach up on her tiptoes to slap them.

“Hit me again,” they snarl, “I fucking _dare_ you.”

In one sharp, vicious, _practiced_ motion, she hooks her foot around their calf and shoves them hard in the chest, sending them crashing down to the floor, their ankle pushed to the very edge of snapping underneath them and their head cracking dully against the wall, stars whirling across their vision. They try to kick out at her, at anything, to try and put more space between them so they have time to stand and run, but she descends on them like a tiger, ferocity blurring her at the edges — she grips them by the hair, yanking their head back so all they can see is her furious face, clenched jaw and flared nostrils and unblinking eyes, and then they’re drifting somewhere outside their body, floating towards the ceiling, a cool and quiet place where nothing hurts.

They could easily overpower her, they know this, they could force their way back into their body, grab her wrist and twist until it breaks. But they can’t. It’s not about strength, it’s about power; and Gerry has none.

Their head brushes against the ceiling as a tiny, heavily tattooed woman twists the heavy, silver ring on her finger (they brought her that ring when they were fourteen, in a desperate attempt for her to like them, it didn’t work, it never worked) halfway around, as much as she can with one hand and extremely limited patience and she pulls her hand back, too far back, a figure dressed all in black pulled taut by the crown of their head underneath her. They close their eyes before the blow lands, but they still feel it reverberating through their skull, echoing through their useless body, even from their place on the ceiling.

Mum lets go of their hair, takes a step back. She is calm now. There are tears stinging in Gerry’s eyes, their head pounding.

“Aren’t you going to apologise?” She’s breathing hard, twisting her ring back the right way, wiping her palms down the front of her trousers. There’s blood smeared on her ring. There’s blood dripping down their cheek. They feel numb, like the whole of the Lonely is whirling inside them, threatening to tear them apart at the seams. “Gerard,” she says, like she’s warning a child to put down a pack of sweets in the off licence.

They try. They try so hard but their voice is trapped, bloodied and bruised and flayed raw in their throat. It’s like trying to scream in a nightmare. It feels like a nightmare; they can’t tell if they’re awake or not, if what’s in front of them is real. The cracks and scuffs in the opposite wall, the sound of a ticking clock, the food on the table going cold.

“This is your fault.”

The words make them feel hollow, like they’ll start floating towards the ceiling again and they won’t come back down. They wish she’d just hit them instead.

“Oh, don’t start crying, or I’ll give you something to _really_ cry about.”

They can’t look her in the eye. Instead, they look at the Coke slowly dripping onto the floor from the table, but they can imagine the smile on her face, smug and vindictively victorious. They can feel their heart beating in the shape of mum’s handprint all over their face and neck; they wonder if this isn’t something to _really_ cry about, what is? Galaxies live and die it takes them to stammer out _I’m sorry._

“Good boy.” It’s a knife in their chest, rusty and serrated and _twisting_. She knows it is (but the sickest part is that it’s _praise_ and they can’t help but latch on to it, holding it, burning hot and heavy as it is, against their chest). “And clean this mess up.” They don’t know if she means the drink or their face. She leaves. They do not feel alone. They want to feel alone. They want their dad.

Gerry scrubs at the carpet and tries not to cry. It’s not as difficult as it should be.

III.

Gerry is twenty-two and covered in mum’s blood. They can feel it soaking through the knees of their jeans, feel the weight of it all over their hands, feel it hot and crusting at the edges on their face; even _taste_ it, metallic and salty in their mouth.

Mum, hunched over, hacking through her skin with a razor blade, a little sliver of metal that seems too small for what it’s doing, her exposed muscle glinting under soft light. The fishing wire laced between the shelves like a web, huge sheets of her flesh covered in drying ink, the sharp smell of marker pen and the heavy stench of blood mingling in the air, weighing it down, everything bathed in a sick, dark red.

Her eyes, clouded but still deadly, her breath ragged and pained, her hands shaking as she thrust the blade and the pen at them, _make yourself useful and help me finish_. Almost unconsciously, their hand reaches out, trembling, to take it, her smile cruel, and…

And they turn and run, slipping on the blood and crashing to the ground, mum’s screams echoing in their head as they frantically crawl on their hands and knees to the door, using it to wrench themselves upright, throwing it open and taking a deep breath of bloodless air, the bell sounding prettily in disgusting contrast to the gore that covers every inch of the shop.

They are sat outside a coffee shop, opposite Pinhole books, staring at nothing, _seeing_ nothing but blood. Even as the police arrive, hauling them to their feet and bundling them into the back of a car, they don’t feel anything. It’s like a hole has been punched clean through them, taking out whatever they used to be and leaving nothing but all that blood behind, festering at the edges; the rot seeps even into their bones.

It’s obvious they did it. It’s obvious they’re a killer. It’s obvious they killed their own mum, the poor woman, even after all she did for them. They were just born evil.

There’s part of them that, after a few days spent delirious with lack of sleep and a few more spent waking up screaming, thinks a life sentence wouldn’t be so bad. At least mum can’t get to them here. Everyone else mostly steers clear, which is fair enough. Gerry wouldn’t particularly want to be associated with someone accused of skinning their own mother, either, even if they hadn’t done it.

Which is just the thing, isn’t it? They’re innocent, but no-one’s ever going to believe them. Even when they were being questioned — _interrogated_ would probably be more fitting — the police made it abundantly clear that they didn’t believe Gerry’s shellshocked mumbling of _I didn’t do it_ and were not reluctant to try and prise a confession out of them.

Two weeks after their arrest and their case is ruled a mistrial. The main piece of evidence against them, that _fucking_ book, disappeared. Witnesses withdrew statements. They know exactly what this means.

Maybe they should’ve plead guilty, after all. Maybe they could turn around, scream that they did it, they killed their own mum with their bare hands and they’d fucking do it again, maybe punch a guard for good measure, get themselves locked up properly.

Because she’ll be there, waiting for them. And they don’t know if they’ll be able to survive it.

Despite everything, the fresh air — real fresh air, with no high walls, with no handcuffs, with no guards manhandling them into the back of cars or through court doors — is a blessed relief. It’s as clean as just outside London gets, and they’re grateful for it, the air and the city looming into view and their old, ratty hoodie wrapped around them in the closest thing they’ve got to a hug in… Well, ever, really. They get on the bus and try to pretend that’s not the most depressing thought in the world.

Dropping into a seat near the back, they instinctively reach into their pocket for their earphones, and come up empty. It takes them a few seconds to jump from paralysing rage to complete despair to nothing at all, something that’s becoming their version of _Ol’ Reliable_ , if _Ol’ Reliable_ made people wish they were dead. God, they’re tired. They let their brain wander around for a bit, trying to find a song they know off by heart, but all they come up with is Waterloo by ABBA. Again.

Twenty minutes later and they’re about three seconds away from a Swedish pop induced breakdown, but still humming the chorus under their breath. They feel… Stuck? Trapped? Lost? All of the above? They feel they’re eight years old and being forced back into a pitch black room, tears streaming down their face and desperately grabbing at mum’s skirt as unseen hands grab at them; like they’re thirteen and trying to hold a book that turns the world upside down and hurting themselves in the process, ozone filling their lungs; like they’re eighteen and sat on a bus listening to Waterloo by ABBA in their head, trying and failing to run away again. They wish they could still run. Even if it didn’t last forever, it’s better than just walking out. Would mum still have killed herself if they didn’t try to leave? Because, no matter how they try to dress it up, mum still _died,_ and it’s their fault. The guilt is as powerful as it is painful, and it hurts so very, very much. They start humming louder.

A middle-aged woman with a, what can only be described as, _confusing_ haircut turns to glare at them, and they aren’t sure whether it’s for the humming or the alleged matricide. A tiny laugh escapes them, and the woman goes very pale very quickly, and turns away. She doesn’t look back.

They get off the bus at random, and drop onto one of the supremely uncomfortable plastic bus stop seats. They stay there for a while, staring at the road. Cars pass. Pigeons fly. People point. They think about jumping in front of a bus. Life goes on.

A stray twenty skitters across the ground and bumps into their feet. They glance around, although they aren’t sure what exactly it is they’re looking for (someone shouting _my lucky twenty pound note, oh where could it have gone_ would be useful), and then make the executive decision to just shove it in their pocket. They look up at the sky, squinting against the bright white. “Thanks.”

Half a pack of suspiciously cheap cigarettes later, they’re starting to feel more like a real person. A bit more solid, at least. They wander around for a while, taking random turns. They’re almost starting to enjoy it until they find themselves at the same bus stop again; they’ve just been walking in a big, wonky circle, thinking they were being _free_. They look back up at the sky, now growing steadily darker. “Get fucked.” Lightning doesn’t strike them down where they stand, and the pavement beneath them doesn’t open up into Hell, either. And they still have thirteen pounds thirty-five to their name, so point one to Gerry Keay.

Their victory is incredibly short lived (but it’s nice to have one anyway) because they start thinking of their mum. The guilt of running, the guilt of being useless, the guilt of trying and failing to be grateful. All this guilt that’s eating them from the inside out, like there’s rats in their stomach.

They can’t face going…

No, it’s not home. It never was. They can’t face going _back_ , so they start walking again. They walk and get the tube and walk some more and end up in Camden, standing outside The Underworld. How very fitting.

The sign above the entrance shouts about a band Gerry’s half-heard of playing tonight, but doesn’t mention it being sold out. They pay a tenner for a ticket without even thinking twice. Consequences are not something they can be bothered with right now, and hopefully they’ll just die in the pit. That’s how they want to go: not consumed by some eldritch fear entity, but kicked to death by a load of hot goths. They can dream.

It’s hot inside the venue, hot and dark with flashing red lights and the opening band sounds like the gates of Hell opening. They grin, and let themselves get lost in it.

Between the second support and the main act, they step outside, into the smoking area. It’s practically deserted, since the band most people paid to see is on in about half an hour, save for a tall girl, leaning against the brick wall like she’s in a photoshoot. Her hair is an explosion of purple curls, her clothes black and white and skin-tight, ripped fishnets and enormous platform boots, sliver buckles glinting, under a short skirt. Gerry lights a cigarette and tries not to stare at her, both with limited success.

She catches their eye and grins, her teeth seeming to shine in contrast to her dark lipstick, pushing off the wall as she says, “Those are really bad for you, you know,” she says, gesturing to the cigarette between their lips as she blows out a thin stream of smoke.

That takes them aback slightly. “You do know you’re smoking, right?” They ask, their heart doing a funny little flip in their chest as she comes closer. Is it because she’s gorgeous or is it because hasn’t glared, pointed, called them a killer?

“Yeah, but, rollie.” She gestures vaguely with it. She is, apparently, completely serious. “It doesn’t have like, rat poison in it.”

“I don’t think these do either.”

“Yeah, they do. Rat poison and tar and lead, all sorts of shit.”

“What about yours? Bleach?”

She grins. “And broken glass.”

“You’re hard.”

“Don’t you know it.” She winks. Gerry never thought an unironic wink could be sexy until now.

They go to take a drag, and discover their suspiciously cheap cigarette can’t stay lit for long. Who would’ve thought. “You got a light? Mine’s fucked.”

She takes a step closer (too close, but they find they don’t mind it) and presses the end of her cigarette, still between her lips, to Gerry’s. She holds it there for a second, and then pulls away, but she stays closer than before.

“Cheers,” they say, suddenly a little tongue-tied. They take a drag. It’s side-lit to all fuck but they couldn’t care less.

“What you been doing, then?” She asks when they don’t say anything else.

They don’t have it in them to come up with anything normal. “Just got out of prison.”

“Yeah? What for?” She grins, clearly thinking they’re joking.

“Murder.”

“God, that’s hot.” This is absolutely not where they thought this conversation would go. She takes a drag, letting the smoke curl out of her mouth much slower, looking at them from under her eyelashes. “Who’d you kill?”

They take a far longer drag than necessary, trying not to scream when they see red seeping across their hands, smudging on their cigarette, the heavy scent of blood making their head swim. They barely hear themselves saying, “the Queen.”

She laughs, loud and bright. “My hero!"

“Got a medal for it and everything.”

“You should show me.”

“Should I?” Their voice is suddenly far too soft, the blood on their hands vanishing.

“I’d love to see it.” And her voice is soft too, sultry and low, her eyes darting down their lips. She grins again. “Even if your dye job’s shit.”

“So I’ve been told,” they say dryly, and she honest-to-god _giggles._ This isn’t fair. “Wanna go back in?”

“Sure,” she says, her hand on the small of their back, easy as that.

Except it’s not as easy as that, is it, because nothing ever fucking is. The rest of the gig was beautiful, the music letting everything just melt away until there was nothing but sound, the kick drum beating instead of hearts, and feeling — of the people crushing against them, of the bass reverberating in their bones, of something far too big for their body but the perfect size for the crowd — and Gerry can practically feel the bruises forming along their ribs and arms. It aches, but in a good way. There’s dark lipstick smudged around their mouth and neck, and although they should really get rid of it, they want to remember (the way she pushed them up against the venue wall, kissing them hard enough to bruise, pressing her body against theirs like she _wanted_ them, biting down on their earlobe and grinning when they made a noise anyone else would’ve called a whimper) _._ They want to remember her so badly but they’re already forgetting her face. They remember her purple hair, the curve of her lips, the mascara smudged under her black-brown eyes, but not cohesively, not as part of a whole (they stare out at the dark street opposite and stop feeling sensation, only pressure. Cars pass and the night stretches out across London, untouched by streetlights and the dim glow from shops and bars around them. Is it all real? Could it all be real? It feels too… safe). It feels like there’s holes punched through their brain, festering at the edges. They’re tired.

They look in the bathroom mirror. Someone looks back and it takes far too realise that it’s _them_. Is it them? Or is this just another trick? It has their hair, long and black and blond at the roots. It has the girl’s lipstick smudged on their lips, the bruises she left on their neck (she was kissing them like she _wanted_ them, and then the next thing they know they’re getting off the tube three stops too early, walking through dark streets that stretch out forever, fumbling with the key to Pinhole Books without her hand resting on the small of their back). It’s wearing their clothes. But they don’t know what their face looks like. Is this what they look like?

They’re so, so tired.

Another reflection appears behind theirs, short and bald and heavily tattooed, flickering.

“There’s my Gerard.” Her voice is dangerous, and they remember why they shouldn’t do _soft._

They want to snap that they’re _not_ _her fucking anything_ , but it comes out as a shaking _hello, mum._

“Aren’t you pleased to see me?”

Too tired to lie, even to protect themselves, they say, “no.”

Her expression hardens and Gerry wonders if breaking the mirror would make it stop.

“Look at me.” 

They turn, slowly, and she’s still standing there. They wonder if breaking the mirror, putting their fist through it and feeling it cut them open, would make it stop.

She shakes her head, slowly, her eyes dragging over the marks on their neck, the lipstick smudges on their mouth. “You’re a disgrace.”

“Thanks.”

Is it too late to walk out? Would she let them? Could they do it?

The buzz of the extractor fan. The faint ticking of a clock. The sound of her breathing, ragged.

She says, so soft and silky-smooth Gerry’s heart nearly stops. “This is your fault—”

“What isn’t.”

“—If you had helped me, if you had made yourself useful for once, I’d be immortal,” She carries on as if they hadn’t spoken. “Completely beyond death, instead of stuck like this.”

Mary Keay, immortal. That’s scarier than everything else they’ve seen combined. They can’t help it; they laugh.

“Don’t you _dare_ laugh at me.”

They laugh because, even though it’s not in the slightest bit funny, they don’t want to start crying. They clap a hand over their mouth, trying to control themselves, but they can’t. They laugh and laugh and laugh until it starts hurting, their useless ribs threatening to break and rupture their useless lungs, mum’s expression shifting from cold to blazing fury.

“I’m going to make you wish you were never born.” And she vanishes, dust suddenly whirling in the space where she was.

“Way ahead of you,” Gerry says, when they eventually manage to stop laughing, an overwhelming feeling of emptiness rushing back inside them. They’re tired. They’re always so tired.

They stare at the dust for a while, waiting for tears that never come.

IV.

Gerry is twenty-seven and falling towards rock bottom so fast it makes them feel dizzy. They still do everything mum says, hoping one day they’ll be deemed useful enough to be let go, but they know they never will be.

It’s all grey. Every day is the same.

Mum will yank them out of bed by the hair and their headaches will threaten to blind them. They’ll tidy the shop. They’ll chase up leads she’s found. They’ll buy or steal (or burn) the book and they won’t feel anything unless they have to fight their way out of it. They’ll subtly take a couple of pills on the bus back from another nightmare.

It’s all grey. Every night is the same.

It’s all messy rooms and empty bottles and a swirl of valium-codeine-ketamine until they can’t think, can’t remember, can’t do anything but lie back, faintly aware of mum walking through their walls and whispering abuse into their ear (even when she isn’t there, mice running over their mattress), then she fades and so do they. They could run, they could just get up and walk out and never come back, but it’s like they’re caught in a trap. They have strength enough to pull themselves out of that trap, but it’s not about strength. It never was. It’s about power. And Gerry doesn’t have any.

They wake up and it’s all grey. It’s all always grey.

Everyone has their breaking point. Gerry’s is against rock bottom.

They haven’t slept in five days and their hair is greasy and matted, cheap-black-dye green shot with blond, their hands shaking so badly it physically hurts and the pain in their head is knife-sharp and _twisting as_ they rip their bedroom apart trying to find the half a gram they _know_ they have left, they just had it, they just put it down, so _where the fuck is it?_ They can’t be sober, they cannot be sober, not now, not when she’s coming back.

The mattress is on the floor, sheets ripped off and strewn around the room, and they’re millimetres away from tearing it open with a hunting knife when they realise what they’re doing. They start laughing. They start laughing so hard the world goes fuzzy at the edges, like mouldy fruit, insects swarming around all that _rot_ —

They bite into their knuckle, hard enough to draw blood, the metallic taste of it coating their tongue, covering their teeth. They curl in on themselves, unable to drop the knife, slowly rocking back and forth. The way they’re sat is forcing point of the blade into their chest, just enough pressure to make sure they don’t forget it’s there. They want to cut all their hair off. They want to carve the tattoos off their skin. They want to stab themselves. They want to bring mum back to life properly and save her, kill her a thousand times until she understands what she’s _done—_

The knife flashes as they bury it in the mattress over and over again, the thin fabric ripping open and white fibres lurching into the air as a miniature hurricane, frantically spinning until they are far enough away to drift back down. How the _fuck_ could they think that? How the _fuck_ could they want to kill her? The light glints off the knife as it nicks their hand, their thigh. They don’t know if it’s deliberate or not. They want to kill her. They want to kill her so badly.

The force of the thought stills them, making them the eye of a dizzying storm.

Through a mouthful of blood, they laugh. The thousand, thin white silvers of fabric float down to cover them like a shroud, blood smudged thin on their teeth and soaking through their jeans and slowly dripping onto their mattress. They run a shaking hand through their hair, their fingers tangling in the knots. They must look fucking _insane._ Maybe they are. It would explain a lot.

Gerry can’t kill their mum, not really, not in any way that means anything. It’s like the capital-F Fears; burning a book doesn’t mean no-one will ever be afraid of bugs, or the dark, or feeling so unloved it cuts you open from the inside out again. They need to (get out) leave, before she’s back. Find a cheap hotel or call in favour and make themselves invisible on someone’s sofa. Have a drink, have a cigarette, try and pretend they’re just tired instead of both metaphorically and literally _haunted_.

They could say _fuck it_ and move to Paris, the one in France or any of the nine in America. Pack a bag, clothes and a towel and some spare shoes, tidy their room, and not ask if their dealer knows a guy who knows a guy. Lock up the shop. Throw the key into the Thames. Try to draw, sat on the first bus out. They could. And they do, sometimes. But they keep the key in their pocket, and rarely make it past Croydon.

Croydon isn’t exactly Paris. Gerry can’t exactly kill their mum.

She told them, when they were either five or twenty-five, that _you can run, but you can’t hide,_ and they either laughed or cried. A bad line from a whole string of bad films. And they ran. And they tried to hide. And they from being found to crawling back.

They want to kill… someone. Her or themselves. It doesn’t matter.

The book is innocently lying on the kitchen table, taunting them. Mentally, they flip a coin (until it lands on tails). Snatching up the book, with their hoodie sleeve cover their hand so they don’t have to feel it, they hold their lighter close to it, their hands violently shaking, the flame so close the edges start to blacken.

The room suddenly feels colder. “Don’t try it,” Mum says, walking through a wall at the other end of the room. She has the nerve to sound _bored_.

“Or what?” They say, too fast and too angry. “Or fucking _what?”_

And she says, perfectly calm, “or I’ll butcher you.”

The sound of the lighter clattering to the ground. The ticking of the clock. Faintly, a siren.

“Put the book down, Gerard.” She’s dead and they still obey her every word. They don’t know who that reflects on worse. “Good boy.”

That knife again, jagged and rusty and twisting straight into their stomach — but it’s praise, praise they can’t resist grabbing and holding against their chest, even though it burns. It’s too much. Everything’s too much.

They sink down to the floor, their knees shaking, and bury their head in their hands, letting their hair hide them. If they close their eyes hard enough for long enough, if they tap out the right code, if they figure out a particular pattern in the kitchen floor, they’ll wake up. They’ll wake up and everything will be okay — they’ll be six, and mum won’t act like mum, she’ll like them this time. They’ll be eleven and the police won’t find them shivering under a bridge and drag them back. They’ll be eighteen and they won’t see The Magnus Institute when they’re sat on the first bus out. They’ll be twenty-two and found guilty of murder and they’ll die in prison and it’ll be okay. It’ll be okay if they can just _wake up_ before mum reaches them. They can feel her coming closer, closer, closer. They know it’s perfectly possible to die of fear, they just didn’t think they would.

She stops in front of them, and they’re barely holding it together, hardly daring to breathe, equal parts terrified and resigned.

And then she ruffles their hair, threading her fingers through it and resting her hand on top of their head. She’s so cold. They don’t want to be in their body; they want to be drifting towards the ceiling, drifting through it and away from everything, somewhere mum can’t touch them, but they are so present it hurts. Their eyes close, desperately trying to block it out, but all it does is reduce the entire universe to mum’s hand, cold and clammy, in their hair. And although they expect the twist, for her grip to tighten and their head to smash against the cupboard doors, they lean into it, just a little; every cell in their body alight with shame. They want to reach up, to grab her wrist and break it, sink their teeth into it, tear her apart and make her _afraid,_ but they also want to hold her hand there for the rest of time. It feels like they’re being pulled apart, humiliation burning in their stomach and whatever’s left of their heart _weeping_ because finally, finally, it’s received something like love.

Is this love? It feels like dying. Is everything meant to hurt like this? It does; it _aches_.

They know, even without looking, that mum is smiling her never-nice smile, that she’s gloating that she’s broken them again, that she’s won. They don’t know why they ever thought it would work out any different. Mum always wins, in the end. No matter what. There’s a small part of them, scared and shaking, that would let her win a thousand more times if it meant she’d just keep her hand in their hair for a few seconds longer, if it meant everything wouldn’t hurt, just for a while. If it meant they could be five, seven, ten, a kid, still young enough to pretend she loved them; still young enough to feel hands in their hair without feeling so afraid they think they might die.

Love and death. It’s hard to tell which one they want more.

“Wash your hair,” she says softly.

She doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t have to. She walks away, and Gerry is alone, but doesn’t feel it.

Their bedroom is filthy, but it’s so dark they can’t see it. All that mess, drifting slowly towards rot, drifting slowly towards corruption. Everything, every single little fucking thing, in their life is tinged with capital-F Fear, mouldering at the edges. They don’t hate it, no, it’s deeper, more complicated than that, because of course it is. It always is. It’s hard to sleep when they know what the dark is capable of. It’s hard to eat when all they can see is a crawling, writhing mass of insects, gently steaming on a plate. It’s hard to breathe when they’re expecting ozone or salt water to fill their lungs. It’s hard to be around people when they’re waiting to be descended on and torn apart. It’s hard to be alone when they’re looking for the fog that will claim them as its own. It’s hard to _be_ when they’re second guessing every action, every thought, because it might not be their own and _something_ might be watching.

Sometimes, though, they want it. Fear calls like it wants _them_. And they know, they _know,_ it just wants to warp them, twist them into a vessel; no heart and no brain and nothing but fear, but being wanted (being _useful)_ is everything to them. And when it calls, when it dangles all these things in front of them — Don’t you want to be held tightly and returned to the earth; to be part of a pack, running feral and free; to let the darkness stretch out and consume you; to burn so bright nothing and no-one can touch you; to finally be left alone; to be someone, something else; to lose yourself in colour and noise, bright and sharp and forever; to be wrapped up in endless blue, away from it all; to embrace that bloodlust that simmers and seethes inside you; to play God, to hold the key to forever; to see it all, the bigger picture shrunk down, tiny in the palm of your hand; to be beyond your body, razor sharp and painful to the touch, finally at the top of the food chain; to have the power to make it all stop; to be consumed by what loves you? Don’t you want to make them _afraid?_ — they want to answer, they want to close the gap between them and fear itself and reach into it and _become_. It would be so easy. They’ve been marked, bruised and scarred and scorched and tattooed and _afraid_ enough times that all they would have to do is just let go. But letting go when their hands have been holding on so hard their knuckles are cutting through their skin, their nails crusted with blood from their palms, their bones fusing into place, would hurt more. And all Gerry wants to do is stop hurting.

The tiny, half-empty plastic bag, tucked away in the cigarette packet shoved in their pocket, seems like the obvious choice. It’s an easy way out, just for a little bit. And they don’t get that very often.

As much as they love the idea of doing a line off the back of a Leitner, they highly doubt all the cosmic horrors that lurk between the pages would find it as funny, so they don’t. Instead, they tip the rest of the white powder out on the back of an old sketchbook. It’s all they use it for now.

They’re tempted to just scrape the ket back into the baggie, to open the book with all its damaged and aged pages and see what they used to be able to do. They used to draw all the time, hunched over on the bus, in the passenger seat of mum’s car, even on the tube, if it wasn’t so busy. Nothing particularly cheerful, snakes and skulls and the occasional twisted portrait, but it all just became eyes, staring and staring and _knowing_ , and then their hands started shaking too much to even be able to hold a pencil, and they stopped. They didn’t mean for it to happen, it just did.

They used to draw all the time and now they want to be high forever. It’s easier. It’s _better._ And it’s not like the even more obvious easy way out would do them any good. They’d end up mutilated and bound to that fucking book (to mum) with no escape at all. 

So this is their life; strung out and useless and so firmly under mum’s thumb they can’t even fucking die properly.

A line. And another. And another. And another until it stops hurting. They relish the burn at the back of their mouth, the stinging in their nose, because it means that everything will be alright, just for a little bit. At the same time, they almost want this to be a bad batch, for it to put them in hospital or for it to finally be the thing that finishes them off. It would probably be funny, or else cosmically fucking unfair, that the thing that kills them isn’t the capital-F Fears they’ve been playing cat and mouse with since they were a kid, but something completely mundane. And they’re still afraid of it, dying.

They punch themselves in the leg as hard as they can. They don’t feel it. It’s easier, it’s better, but it still hurts. Everything still _aches._

The comedown would hit them hard, if they let it, so they just do a little bit more. Just one more line. There’s some pills in a jacket pocket somewhere. They’ll help.

They do, and they don’t.

Sometime later, between all the shaking and the people that walk through their walls, they wake up. Because of course they do. Because of course they wouldn’t be allowed to break of out this endless cycle of being wound up and down and stretched to their breaking point, of blinding headaches and feeling sick all the fucking time and tonight, tonight they’re going to go out and get absolutely obliterated, get so fucking drunk their heart stops altogether, because it’s easier. Because it’s better. They would do anything to feel nothing, anything at all.

Neon light and bodies pressed up against theirs and one-two-three-four-five-six-seven too many drinks and dangerous bumps off someone else’s key. The mix makes them feel sick, makes their eyes keep rolling back into their head, but someone’s got them pushed up against a wall, too hot and too heavy and they want to scream but they just pull the someone closer.

Someone, else or the same — they don’t know, is gently pushing Gerry into the back of a taxi, sitting too close, a hand on their knee and steadily inching up their thigh. They lean their spinning head against the window, watching clusters of high-street light flash by. A vile taste at the back of their mouth and their nose is running and they can’t stop touching their hair or clenching their jaw, they’re so hot it feels like their blood has turned to needles, prickling under their skin.

By the time _someone_ is pulling them out of the taxi, they’re drifting, but they’re fine with it, a little lost in ebbing euphoria. _Someone,_ as it turns out, is a man with the most aggressively East End accent they’ve ever heard and _that_ Joy Division t-shirt. If he says anything about them rolling their eyes, they blame it on the MD.

His flat is bigger than it looks like it should be; it’s very recently-decided-to-be-an-adult, with posters in frames and a few slightly lacklustre houseplants. He offers Gerry a drink, a seat on the sofa, and they just kiss him instead. They don’t know why they do it. They don’t want to know why they do it, and try not to think about it as he leads them down a narrow corridor to his bedroom.

He scrolls through his phone as Gerry stretches out, topless, on his bed, sinking down into the mattress. The sheets are soft, the cushions are just firm enough, and they want to die. A couple of songs play in three-second bursts, but they don’t seem to be right, and he keeps skipping them. Their head hurts. They are so tired.

“If you’re gonna…” They struggle for a second; no word seems to fit what they want. “If you’re gonna fuck me, can you get on with it?”

He looks over at them, one eyebrow raised. “And who said romance was dead.”

Gerry laughs. “It was never born.”

“You’re really depressing, you know that?”

“Thanks.”

“Are all you goths like this?”

“Yeah,” they say, trying to blow a strand of their hair off their face with limited success. “We legally have to be. Otherwise we lose our goth cards. TM.” They draw the letters with their finger in the air. He rolls his eyes, but laughs.

He finally decides on a song then, crawling on top of them, weighing them down and kissing them, biting at their bottom lip. They whimper, and he does it harder, roughly palming them through their jeans. They barely stop themselves from recoiling.

It finally registers what song is playing, and they tense up, going to push him away but don’t quite make it, instead resting their hand on his chest. For a second, they marvel at how chipped their nail varnish is, how their skin seems translucent against his tan. “Wait.”

He stops, which they’re grateful for (although they shouldn’t be). “What’s wrong?”

“You’re not fucking me to Rihanna. I’ve got standards.” They’re saying it for a reaction, more than anything else. To postpone the inevitable, even though they just want this whole thing to be over with.

He scoffs. “Do you?”

“Fair enough.” And they kiss him, harder.

He unbuckles their belt with practiced ease, and they wriggle out of their jeans, just about managing to not smack his hands away. He keeps murmuring _you’re so fucking gorgeous,_ his breath hot on Gerry’s neck, _gorgeous girl,_ two things that they ostensibly are not. And Gerry doesn’t know how to feel. They don’t want to _feel,_ but they do, they always do, so they just turn into a rag doll, and let themselves be used.

It’s not gentle. It hurts. And that’s all they want; shallower, closer pain that isn’t cosmic agony or laced with that capital-F Fear. They keep flickering, inside their body with him inside them, and brushing against the ceiling, watching themselves as he sinks his teeth into their neck, as he grips their hair hard enough to make their eyes water, as he keeps fucking calling them _gorgeous girl_ over and over again, his thighs starting to tremble. They imagine being in the arms of someone else, someone who kisses their forehead and doesn’t mark them up like every other fucking thing in this fucked-up universe does; they imagine laughing, in bed, all curled up, about this guy they slept with, this guy who fucked them to Rihanna, this guy who kept calling them _gorgeous girl,_ and the sun would shine through the curtains and hold them in gold, keep them safe.

He groans, deep and guttural, and Gerry is yanked forcefully back into their body as he cums. They’re never allowed to just _escape,_ are they? He goes to touch them, and they stop him, their fingers wrapping around his wrist, shaking their head, muttering something about being too drunk, and he just nods, collapsing down next to them. They look up. There’s a faint brown stain on the ceiling, irregular and darker at the edges.

This wasn’t easier, this wasn’t better. This didn’t make it stop.

They shift around so he’s not touching them — his skin, clammy and hot to the touch, makes them feel sick, like the places where it touched their own is rotting — and stand on shaking legs, starting to gather up their clothes.

They’ve got as far as lacing up their fucking shoes when he says, “Oh, you don’t have to go.”

Would it be too much to ask for someone to just fucking _look_ at them for once? For someone to notice when they’re leaving, when they’re gone, even when they’re there? Not the edges of them, sharp and hard to ignore as they are; not the spaces around them, but _them._ All their life, they’ve been watched but never seen. They should be used to it, but it still hurts, it aches like nothing else aches.

They ask to be let out.

London late at night, early in the morning, is a scary place; that different, shallower fear stabbing into every inch of exposed skin. They wanted him to beg them to stay, to offer to call them a taxi, anything, but he just silently opened the door and shut it softly behind them. It’s a long way back to Morden, but they don’t take the bus or the tube. It’s penance. It’s punishment. Same thing.

It’s nine in the morning by the time they arrive at Pinhole Books, the sun rising behind a thick blanket of grey cloud, and they can feel someone watching them, but the only car parked on the street is empty. They don’t react as they fumble with their keys, the sound of the door creaking open mingling in the air with the soft trill of the bell, but they know better than to dismiss it. Twenty-seven years is more than enough to teach them that it’s never just paranoia.

The shop is cold and miserable, so nothing’s changed there. Gerry breathes in the dust, hardly daring to walk inside. It’s not just the cold, not just the books, but their hair, sunlit spider-web blond at the roots and seemingly every shade of dark but black, but the bruises on their neck and the rips in their clothes, dark makeup smeared under their eyes and the smudges on their temples. They reach up to tie their hair back, but falter. Their shoulder screams as they try to raise their arms, a bolt of pain shooting down their spine. They don’t stop because it hurts, but because they want to hide, not fight.

No, it’s not the cold, not the books, not their hair, not their clothes or their eyes or the pain in every movement; it’s mum. The fear crushes them, reshapes them like an empty can. When that door closes, they’re trapped by walls and locks instead of guilt and the need to be useful. The door always closes, and with them on the wrong side of it. It makes them laugh, really, the inevitability of it all. Like a car crash in slow motion.

They step inside, and the door starts to ease itself shut behind them.

They’re always afraid, they’re always running, but they always come back. It’s not like they can go anywhere else.

Cracks in the paint and the light streaming in through the windows and the dust swirling around the shape of where they were seconds ago. They hate it, this building. It’s hardly even a building for all the shit that’s been through it. Four walls and a roof, cracked windows and a door with rusty hinges. Hundreds, if not thousands, of fucking _books,_ and all of them evil. They wonder, sometimes, that if mum hadn’t found that first book, would things be different? Would things be actually normal, instead of their immensely fucked-up version of it? Or was she just born like that, they same way everyone though they were when their mugshot was all over the news? Questions on questions with no real answers, all of them barbed and twisting, twisting, twisting. They are tired.

They are _tired._

Behind them, the bell sounds, and abruptly stops. They freeze, but not in a way that means they're about to fight, more that they’ve accepted it, whatever _it_ might be. They hope it’s death, maybe in the form of one of those Lightless Flame nutters come to finish what Molina started. Or Oliver Banks, all sad eyes and soft, apologetic tones. Or just some random off the street, and they’ll be a knife in their back before they can turn around.

Maybe, if they do die, they’ll see Oliver again. It’s been a while. And he can be quite fun to be around, in short bursts. Especially if he’s drinking.

Of course, they aren’t that lucky. They glance over their shoulder — it’s not definitely not Oliver, unless he’s had a really, _really_ rough few months. The tiny, cardigan toting, greying woman holding the door half-open doesn’t particularly seem the type to burn them alive or stab them in the back, but they’re long past trusting first impressions. They’re too tired to (put up a) fight, and they don’t care enough to stop her if she’s here to steal or burn down the place or whatever — in fact, they kind of hope she does.

A beat. Neither of them move. Silence pushes down on all sides.

Gerry rolls their eyes.

“We’re closed on weekends,” they say, turning to the nearest shelf and pulling a book out at random. They dust down the cover and shove it back, but in a different place. They hope it vaguely makes them look like they know what they’re doing.

“It’s a Tuesday.”

_Well, shit._ They look at her, at her crisply pressed trousers and her polished shoes and her big bobbly cardigan. Her hair is cut in a severe bob, more grey than brown, and she wears her glasses on a little silver chain _(definitely the kind of person to call them_ _spectacles,_ they think _)._ She looks like a particularly arsey librarian, but she has an aura of don’t-fuck-with-me that Gerry — well, they don’t _like_ , but they can respect it. She’s looking at them over the rim of her glasses with an expression that definitely sends grown men running.

But Gerry isn’t a man, so they stand a little taller, look her dead in the eye, and say, “we’re closed on Tuesdays as well.”

“Mr Keay, I—”

“Don’t call me that,” they snap, and instantly kick themselves for it. They’ve shown weakness already. Fucking typical.

“Gerard, then.” She steps inside fully, the bell ringing half-heartedly as the door clicks shut behind her.They don’t ask why she knows their name. They can guess, even though they’d rather not.

“My name is Gertrude Robinson.” That rings a bell, although faintly. The back of their neck prickles. Maybe it, like the one over the door, should be replaced with a siren. “Head Archivist at The Magnus Institute.”

They barely resist the urge to make a joke about that being her full name, and this terrible, wonderful memory hits them like a freight train.

Trying to catch the first bus out of London. Seeing the sign. Lying to the receptionist and feeling awful because she was so… so _nice_. Michael, and his stories of Gerry’s dad. The photo. They still have it. They’ve looked at it every single day for the past nine years. It’s worn and faded and there’s creases worn into it from where they’ve folded it up and opened it out and folded it over and over again.

“Ah,” Gerry manages. Their mouth is suddenly very dry.

Michael walking them to the bus stop, waving at them as the bus pulls away and they think of his smile almost constantly for six months straight. The first time they can remember mum ever making dinner. Spilled off-brand Coke. The conversation that ends in the little scar on their cheek.

“Do you have somewhere a little more private where we could talk?” It doesn’t feel like a question, and that gets their back up enough to return to the present.

“Depends.”

“On?"

“What you want to talk about.”

Gertrude Robinson, Head Archivist at The Magnus Institute, doesn’t sigh in irritation, but they can see she wants to. “I believe you are having some… difficultly with a certain book.”

They keep their expression blank, hoping she can’t hear them mentally screaming. “Not really.” They gesture around. “Books are sort of my specialty.” Gerry knows exactly what they’re doing, and they hate themselves for it. No weakness. Making themselves useful.

It hurts. And they are tired.

She looks them slowly up and down, and they feel like breaking something. “It certainly looks like it.”

As it turns out, Gerry is not above telling an old woman to fuck off. And either they’re seeing things (again), or she’s trying very hard not to smile.

“Your mother—”

“Modern-day saint, yeah.”

“—is bound to the Book of the Trapped Dead, yes?”

They nod slowly, suspiciously. They remember the knife under the cash register.

“And she won’t let you go.”

They are very, very still. They tell themselves they are not afraid.

“I can help.”

“How?” They blurt.

“Bring the book to me when she can’t get it, and you’ll be free of her. Like every teenager wishes,” she adds dryly.

“I’m twenty-seven,” they say quietly, wanting to laugh at the jab, but they’re not quite there yet.

Gerry makes her a cup of tea, because even though they weren’t exactly raised right, they’re not an animal. She pretends not to notice the very roughly measured shot of vodka they tip into their own mug, and they drink in silence. The ground under Gerry’s feet, for the first time in a very long time, feels a little more even.

It takes a while for mum to lose enough strength that she starts to fade again. It’s like she knows. And it (she) gets so bad Gerry has to make a run for it, all the things she says chasing after them, biting at their heels. They decide to buy just a little bottle of vodka, to take the edge off, and then wake up in a Norwich A&E with a drip in the back of their hand and no memory of how they got there.

They hit rock bottom, and typical Gerry Keay fashion, they just kept fucking digging.

Eventually, they can get the book to Gertrude without mum literally skinning them alive. They don’t particularly believe she’s going to do anything, or even be able to do anything, about it; but they hand it over anyway. If she does it, if she stops everything, it’s not their fault. It’s a bullshit loophole, but they cling to it like it’s their life line.

They get so high they can’t remember their name that night, and the night after, and the night after that.

A week later, Gertrude hands them the book with mum’s pages torn out, scorch marks in the margins.

She offers them a job; more of the same, just with her. “You could be useful.” She says, like she knows what _being useful_ means to them. She extends her hand and they don’t even hesitate before shaking it.

And if she sees them trying not to cry, she doesn’t say anything.

V.

Gerry is twenty-eight and sat in a hospital waiting room, idly scrolling through their phone and waiting for Gertrude to come back from that vending machine she was talking about. The entire place looks a little bit like a painting, with delicate brush strokes and a faultless understanding of the way light works, but a painting nonetheless. They feel a little bit sick.

The first few weeks with Gertrude were pretty touch-and-go, with her acting every bit the unstoppable force to Gerry’s immoveable object, but once they got slightly too drunk together one night, they were on solid ground. After all, the second Gerry saw her beat probably the most muscular man on the planet in an arm wrestle, she was filed away in their head under _instant hero status._ They thought of Michael’s smile, the photo of their dad (now cut up and safely sealed in the locket around their neck), before finishing their drink and discreetly getting the guy’s number. Gertrude noticed and gave them a look, but they just laughed it off. And quietly, they realised it was the first time they’d properly laughed in years. (They never asked about Michael. They could guess, but they prefer to just imagine him somewhere far away and happy).

They do more or less the same thing for her as they did for mum, they just get paid for it. And they aren’t literally being haunted anymore, which is a plus. They follow Gertrude around the world, chasing leads to Paris, France (but not any of the other ones), Norway, Bulgaria, even New Zealand. Nothing really comes of any of it, but they are very pretty places. Gerry makes countless unbelievably awful jokes and Gertrude rolls her eyes at every single one (and if Gerry only makes them in some convoluted attempt for her to start talking about their dad, that’s for them to know and her to never find out).

Then they started getting those headaches more often, those headaches that made them sick and burned holes in their memory, and sometimes they’d say something and Gertrude would look at them like they’ve just grown an extra head. Maybe it was their tone, or the words themselves, but their voice always seemed to come out wrong, big enough to get stuck in their throat like it used to but sharp enough to cut itself free. They thought it was just the comedown, then detox, and then withdrawal, then the fact they never seem to get enough sleep or drink enough water, anything to quiet the gnawing worry that this wasn’t just a little (substance-related) problem, or that it hadn’t slowly been building up for the past couple of years.

It’s not like they were hiding just how bad it had gotten, they just understood Gertrude’s intensely limited patience for weakness, and didn’t particularly fancy getting put down in some back alley, or worse, just abandoned. And besides, it’s kind of hard to hide anything from Gertrude. They’re about eighty percent sure she thought they were using again — which, honestly, wasn’t an unfair assumption; how often do stone-cold-sober people almost walk in front of buses because they’re talking about auras and feeling like an astronaut and tasting flowers?

She didn’t even try to pull them out the way, which they put at about a two on their internal pain scale, so some random man grabbed them by their jacket and hauled them back, shouting about watching where they were going. They stared at his face, not really understanding what was going on, and felt themselves disappear.

They woke up on the ground, yesterday’s rain soaking through their jacket, feeling like they had been hit by that bus after all.

So, a hospital waiting room that looks more like a painting than a real place, feeling every single bone in their body, and they’ve had to stop asking Gertrude why exactly they’re there with no real answers. All in all, they’ve had better days.

After a couple of hours, after Gertrude comes back with an apparently too-expensive coffee in her hand, after the room stops swaying back and forth, a doctor walks up to them both. She introduces herself as Doctor Perez and tells them she has Gerry’s results. What results these are, they aren’t entirely sure, but they don’t show it. She says she’d like to tell them somewhere private, which in Gerry’s admittedly limited experience, probably means they aren’t good.

“Would you like your…” she looks at Gertrude, trailing off. “To come with you?”

“I’ll wait here,” Gertrude says before Gerry has a chance to answer. They were expecting it, but should it still hurt? _(it does, it aches)._

The doctor leads them to a little side room, full of nothing but chairs, shutting the door behind them. “Have a seat, Mr Keay.”

They wince at the _Mr,_ not bothering to hide it as they sit down on the chair nearest the door. It is, by no stretch of the imagination, comfortable. “Gerard.” It’s not ideal either, but it’s better than _Mr Keay,_ two of their least favourite reminders back to back.

“Gerard,” she corrects herself smoothly as she sits down next to them. She says their name funny, her accent stretching it out in all the wrong places. “Can I get you anything? Some water?”

It catches them off guard, which is a testament to how tired they are, but they manage to recover. “I’m… I’m fine, thanks.”

“As you know, we did a scan—” (did they? Gerry doesn’t remember) “—and unfortunately the results were not what we were hoping for.” She pauses, something in her eyes that makes them want to run. “Unfortunately, your seizure was due to a more serious underlying cause.”

They stare at a spot just over her shoulder, trying to spot any irregularities in the paint. It seems so smooth, so unbroken.

“I’m so sorry to tell you this, but you have a malignant brain tumour.”

At first, they don’t understand. They hear the words separately, but they don’t make sense together. They feel like they’re a kid again, six years old and struggling through a book most adults could never understand; like mum’s sat opposite them at the table, getting more and more impatient until a hand flashes across their vision and they’re sent crashing to the floor, their cheek on fire, mum yelling at them to _just get on with it, it’s not that hard!_ The doctor is looking at them, her eyes looking more and more like mum’s every second. They know she isn’t going to hit them, but something (someone, a child, trapped and screaming) in their chest tells them she is.

“Is t-that…” They have to swallow, their words clogging up their throat, too heavy and awkward to be anything other than stuck. “Like, like, can—like, cancer?”

“Yes,” she says. Her eyes aren’t pitying, exactly, but they don’t know what else it could be. “I can see this is a huge shock for you.”

It’s like she’s reading right out of a phrasebook, and they’re grateful for it — it makes them feel slightly less like they’re losing their mind (which, in a way, they are). They would laugh at that if they didn’t feel like they were teetering on the verge of a colossal breakdown. “H-how, how, how big...?” They’re expecting (hoping, praying for) something small, something that means they’re going to be alright, something they can gouge out and stitch up the edges. A two pence piece.

They watch her suppress a sigh. “About the size of a fist.”

There’s a tiny scuff in the wall, a few centimetres from her ear. It feels significant, although they don’t know why.

The doctor starts talking about where to go from here, but Gerry can’t hear her at all. It’s like they’re already dead. Faintly, like thinking about a dream, they remember getting into The Institute for the first time on a poorly thought out sob story about their dad dying of… of what Doctor Perez is talking about; if there is a God, he has an unbelievably twisted sense of humour.They want someone to be sat beside them, rattling off everything they know about cancer: treatments, drugs, survival rates, telling them about an uncle that got cancer and recovered even when the doctors were sure he wouldn’t. But, as always, they are alone. Just a ghost with no friends and no heart and even less brain than before.

She asks if they want treatment. They ask for a bed to die in.

They stand in front of Gertrude. She doesn’t look up from her magazine, a tattered old gossip rag she clearly has zero actual interest in. “Good news?” she asks, her voice dry as ever.

“I’ve got brain cancer.”

That gets her attention. She looks up at them sharply. “What?”

“I’ve got fucking _brain cancer_ and I put off seeing a doctor to, to, to m-make myself _useful_.” Their voice is rising, millimetres from hysterical, and people are starting to stare.

“Gerard, I—”

Anger rises with their hysteria and speaks for them, smoothing their words over. “I’m going to die. I’m going to fucking die in here, in this hospital, in _America_ , because I’ve got fucking brain cancer—”

“Gerard.”

“I’ve spent my life chasing the actual fucking manifestations of fear itself and the thing that gets me is fucking _brain cancer?_ What kind of a sick fucking joke is that? You may as well just put me out of fucking misery now! _”_ People are definitely staring now, and it’s not that Gerry doesn’t care, it’s that they’ve just found out they’ve got _brain cancer_.

Gertrude gives them a look, and they falter, just for a second. “Gerard, calm down.”

They’ve never truly understood the appeal of The Slaughter until right this second. “ _Calm down?_ Did you just tell me to fucking _calm down?_ I’ve got _brain cancer,_ Gertrude!”

A nurse comes up to them, a lighthouse in a storm, her sensible white trainers squeaking against the linoleum. “Is everything alright?”

Before Gerry can shout _clearly fucking not_ , Gertrude smoothly says, “they’ve just had some bad news.”

The nurse puts a hand on their arm before they can flinch away, and they deflate, all their anger and hysteria gone, leaving a huge, aching expanse of nothing behind. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Please let me know if you need anything.” And she squeaks away.

They collapse weakly into the seat next to Gertrude, suddenly very dizzy, and let their hair fall across their face. They wish, more than anything, that they could lean their head, festering and _wrong_ as it is, against her shoulder. Instead, they cradle it in their hands. Their hands, scarred and tattooed. Their hands that don’t look like they belong to anyone.

“I expect you’ll be getting treatment,” she says, after a while.

“No,” they reply faintly, the room gently rocking back and forth. If this surprises her, she doesn’t let it show.

“Good,” she says, and there might even be the slightest hint of sadness in her voice. “You’re too young to lose your hair.”

They turn their head slightly towards her, the room lurching violently as they look up from their hands. “Not too young to die, though.” It’s half a joke at best, but she still smiles.

“Who isn’t?”

“You, for a start,” they say, their voice too fragile to be called cheeky, but they’re making the effort. “What are you, six hundred odd?”

“It’s my thousandth birthday next week, actually. Show some respect.”

They laugh. Then a horrible thought strikes them: they know she’s joking, but what if she isn’t? Not about the being a millennia old, but about her birthday. It could be next week and they have no idea. They’ve followed her around the world and they don’t know when her birthday is — they might not even be around to see it, be it a week or eleven months away. Then they realise they almost definitely won’t be around to see their next birthday and have to dig their nails into their palms.

Gertrude gently and incredibly awkwardly pats them on the back. It takes all they have in them to not drop their head down onto her shoulder. They are so tired.

A silence. A moment of everything being _empty_.

“I’ll have someone to bring you a bag,” Gertrude says, not softly. Neither of them do (or even know how to do) _soft,_ but she means to be.

“Right,” they say quietly. Of course she wouldn’t do it herself. That might mean she cared. They want her to say that she’ll stay with them, that she’ll visit, but it would be a lie. 

The days slip through their fingers. Gertrude leaves and they don’t know how long it’s been since she left. They were expecting it, but it still aches. The nurses are kind without being pitying, and they don’t lie and say _you’re looking better today!_ which they’re grateful for. Gertrude’s gone and the nurses are kind and they don’t want to die. They really, really don’t want to die. But they’re going to. This isn’t something they can burn or stab or run away from. The inevitably of it is almost funny. Almost.

It’s dark when they feel it, like ice slipping into their stomach. Ice in their stomach and a mouth full of flowers and a head full of fear. They want their dad. They want what they can’t have. Just a dying thing with no heart and no memory and no courage.

Their life stretches out in front of them. It doesn’t go far. And it starts shrinking. Slowly, at first, but then faster. It doesn’t feel like falling asleep, although they are so very, very tired.

They feel like a kid, waking up from a nightmare that felt so real, and they want to scream, to cry out for _mum_ to come and save them with every fibre of their being. It might be different this time. They might not have to run down the corridor, chased by claws and teeth and too many eyes. They might not have to shake her awake with tears streaming down their cheeks. They might not get slapped. They might not feel her hands twisting through their hair, then gripping it too tightly at the roots, they might not feel the carpet burning their legs as she drags them back to their room, scrabbling at her wrists to make her let go — _mummy you’re hurting me please you’re hurting me!_ — they might not have to hear the door slam behind her. They might not get left alone in the dark, crying and crying and crying until the door opens, swallowing down tears in a hopeful gulp because she came back _,_ and then another slap, and then, softly, _if you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to really cry about._ It might be different this time.

Who are they fucking kidding.

It was, is, and never will be different. Things being different was just a story they used to tell themselves to be able to fall asleep, dreaming that they’d wake up and mum wouldn’t be so angry, she’d make three meals a day, they’d go to school, she’d help them with their homework, and they wouldn’t be so scared all the time. Mum has taken everything from them, so much so that their last breath is the only thing she hasn’t touched. And she will not touch it. She will not take their death as she took their life. They stay quiet. They are so very good at staying quiet, even when they’re terrified.

Gerry closes their eyes, for what they hope is and isn’t the final time. They try not to cry.

+1

Gerry is twenty-eight forever and has just about fucking had it.

They’re being used as some sort of _dictionary_ by the world’s worst father-daughter duo (world’s worst because they’re not actually father and daughter, as they found out in the middle of an argument that resulted in attempted murder, and because they just _suck),_ trapped in the book that haunted their every waking moment for _five years,_ in the book they stayed haunted for so they wouldn’t end up in it, stuck in America (and not even any of the nine Parises) and forced to exist in such a way that even thinking cuts them open.

And then on top of that, there’s Gertrude. Turns out they were right to not trust first impressions, because she did stab them in the back. Literally. Multiple times. To skin them. 

They keep turning it over and over in their head, trying to understand. She must have thought they’d be useful (the thought burns, so hot it melts their skin, as they hold it close), but they clearly weren’t much fucking use in the end, or she wouldn’t have left them. Twice.

She left them to die, then came back to _butcher_ them, to trap them in the one thing they needed to be freed from, and left again. Thinking about it is like putting their hand on a hot stovetop; they shouldn’t, but they still do. They used to do that a lot when they were younger, as if ruining their hands would make mum stop forcing Leitners into them. It didn’t. It only made it hurt more.

Now here they are. And they’ve just about fucking had it.

It comes in waves, the anger. And who it’s directed at comes and goes as well. Usually, it’s Trevor and Julia — because they keep asking about _monsters,_ because they’re both there, because they’re both alive and Gerry isn’t — but sometimes it’s Gertrude. Sometimes it’s Leitner. Sometimes it’s mum. It’s themselves a lot; their body, translucent and just different enough to be hard to look at, and the space where their brain went wrong.

When it ebbs away again, they can make brief peace with being uncomfortable. It’s not forever. They know it’s not forever because they’ve decided they’re not going to help Trevor and Julia anymore. Keep their mouth shut when they ask and then, hopefully, piss them off into throwing the whole book on a bonfire. Wishful thinking, they know, but if they can’t dream about it, what else can they do?

Gerry keeps their promise to keep their mouth shut, even as Julia grabs at their page, digging her nails in and doing whatever she thinks would hurt. It does, but it’s almost welcome. It’s shallower than the pain of keeping on existing when they’re already dead. That’s all they’ve been after since they were a kid — shallower pain, shallower fear to distract from everything else. They refuse to beg for Trevor and Julia to kill them, but they do ask. Sometimes, they even ask nicely. Sometimes.

It might be two days, it might be six months — weirdly, keeping track of the passage of time is difficult when you’re dead and trapped in a book made of skin — before they’re next _summoned_ (and _summoned_ is the word those two nutcases like to use). It almost scares them how little they care. They’re resigned to it. They’ll stay quiet until the monster hunter extraordinaries get bored and either kill them again or leave them to fester between the pages.

_“And so Gerard Keay ended.”_

Being torn through the fabric of reality itself is never a particularly pleasant experience, but it’s quick. It hurts in a way that they think they must be dead all over again, because there’s no way they could’ve survived _that,_ but it’s over so fast they’re only left with the memory of pain and not the pain itself. Just awkward, shifting discomfort that’s just heavy and sharp enough that they could never get used to it, even if they wanted to.

The room is a very classically shit American motel one; the lights not quite bright enough, relentlessly cream walls, and a fine layer of grit covering a carpet that’s somehow both blue and brown. Two short, squat beds, with sheets that were probably once white, take up most of it, and squeezed in the remaining space is a dusty TV and a big, black cupboard. Even though Gerry can’t actually get dirty anymore, the room still makes them feel it.

There’s a man perched on the very edge of the far bed, which wouldn’t normally be weird — the beds really do look gross — but it is. It’s weird because, well, Gerry’s never seen him before, and it’s not like they’ve been able to meet a lot of new people lately. It doesn’t throw them, though. It takes a lot more than that.

He’s holding the book in trembling hands, a tape recorder whirring by his side, looking like he’s about three seconds away from complete mental breakdown. From the bags under his eyes, Gerry guesses he probably hasn’t slept in about six months. His hair is tangled and frizzy, half falling out of the ponytail he’d scraped it back into; and he’s _covered_ in these little circular scars. He’s looking at Gerry in a way that can only be described as _deer in the headlights._ Normally, this is a good thing, but for some reason it’s making their skin crawl.

“Gerard? Gerard Keay?” His voice is rough, just strained enough to let Gerry know he’s terrified. It’s actually quite reassuring, in a way; it means he’s not beyond hope.

Still. Bit of a stupid question, really.

_No_ , _I’m Santa,_ they don’t say, dropping onto the other bed, which is somehow even less comfy than it looks. “You’re new. Did you kill them?”

This is apparently not the way he was expecting the conversation to go. They only really asked to fuck with him, just a bit — there’s no way this man would be able to take on Trevor and Julia at the same time (and even individually, he’d get his skinny arse handed to him), let alone be able to kill them.

He says he hasn’t, Gerry tells him to piss off. Then they ask for cigarette, mostly for fun, but he pulls out a pack, and holds one out. That does throw them, which is equal parts confusing and embarrassing, but they think they hide it well.

There’s dirt under his nails, and his palm is burned in a way they’d recognise anywhere. He’s wearing a shirt that looks like it hasn’t been taken off in a few days, and his shoes are scuffed, dust creeping up from the soles. Gerry feels… something. They almost want to say that they used to light their cigarettes off burning Leitners and looked sick as fuck doing it. That the longest they managed without a sneaky smoke break was a week. That nicotine was the one thing they couldn’t quit. That they got sober just in time to die of fucking brain cancer.

They don’t, though. Wouldn’t want to ruin the mood.

He has this battered silver lighter with hundreds of tiny spiders etched all over it, and their mind instantly screams _Web,_ but it doesn’t bother them like it should do. They are dead, at the end of the day. There’s not a lot that _can_ bother them.

Apart from the man perched on the very edge of bed, apparently, because he says, “C-Can you smoke it?” And they realise they very much can’t.

Being dead fucking _sucks_.

It turns out that he _(I’m Jon, with the Magnus Institute,_ he says, and they don’t even think of making a joke about full names) is Gertrude’s replacement, and that she died not long after Gerry did — and not peacefully, either. They’re glad, in a way. They did the _dying quietly in bed_ thing, and it would’ve suited Gertrude even less than it did them. It’s also quite funny. Jon replacing her, not her death, that is. He’s such a wreck Gerry’s amazed he can still sit up straight. In the year they knew her, Gertrude was never anything less than ruthlessly efficient, even with a drink in her. Get a drink in Jon and he might just die.

Alcohol tolerance notwithstanding, he wants their help. And they tell him to piss off again, but slightly nicer this time. He insists, getting more desperate, and Gerry has an idea.

They’re beginning to feel a bit like some shitty goth damsel in distress; always relying on someone else to come and save them. But instead of wicked step-mothers (they were only two-thirds of the way there with that one), it’s evil literature. They don’t remember Sleeping Beauty being tied to a skin book, but it’s definitely something for the revised edition.

Incredibly (insanely), Jon agrees, ripping their page clean out in exchange for answers, and it takes everything in them to not start doing ghostly victory laps around the cramped room. Jon asks his questions and they answer as best they can. Although, not without gently taking the piss. Old habits die hard. Much like Gerry. Apparently. They even give a _statement,_ about mum, of course, which stings a little, but they can ignore it. Jon’s eyes are gleaming, entirely too excited and something too close to _hungry_ for comfort. About halfway through, they wonder if they’re being compelled. It’s entirely possible, but they don’t… they don’t feel Jon digging around in their head or anything. And besides, if he is, they can let him have it. He looks like he needs a win, however small. After their statement _,_ they talk about the eldritch elephant in the room. The capital-F Fears, once again proving that Gerry can’t escape, even in death. But they don’t hold it against him. God knows, no-one else is going to tell the poor bastard.

Fears and rituals and Gerry’s starting to get tired again. Talking about it makes them realise just how completely fucked everything is, and the one person they even vaguely believed could stop the entire world going completely to shit is dead. She’s dead and she probably never even thought of them before she finally kicked it.

They made endless bad jokes and she never laughed at them, but she tried to lighten the mood in a hospital waiting room. When they got those awful headaches and burned through paracetamol like there was no tomorrow, she never brought it up, but she’d speak more softly around them and keep the lights down low, at least until they were out of the room. They once stole her wastepaper bin to get rid of something a little more than waste paper and she never said a word, but the next day a smaller, blue bin was delivered to them, with a note reading _I expect mine back in the morning._ She saved them, and they followed her around the world for it. They owed her a debt so massive they could never repay it.

And then she left.

Fears and rituals and they are so _tired_.

They don’t want to talk about it anymore.

“To be honest, when she was going through _this_ stuff, that was about the time I thought I had found Leitner, so I wasn’t much in the mood to listen.” They aren’t lying. They’d never been less focused on what she was saying in their entire life. Why the fuck would they be? There was a chance that they might be able to drop-kick the cunt into the Thames, which they’d been dreaming of doing since they learned how to read. 

“Leitner?” Jon asks, his eyebrows knitting together in a way that, if he’d caught Gerry at any other time (as in, when they were a bit less dead), they would’ve called _cute._

“Yeah. Gertrude reckoned he was alive somewhere. Said she thought she’d found him. I tracked him down, but it… well, it wasn’t him.”

“Y-You’re sure?”

“It was just some pathetic old man. Couldn’t have been him. He was so scared of me, I just…” He barely even tried to defend himself. Dropped like a lead fucking balloon the first time Gerry’s fist connected with his face. And they kept going. They were so sure it was him, even as he was spitting out teeth, pleading for his life. They had him by the collar, his face a bloody mess, and they were going to smash his head against the wet concrete, but there was this _fear_ in his eyes. A fear too shallow to have seen what he should have seen. They dropped him as if they’d burned all over again. “… just let him go.” They regret it, of course they do. Regret isn’t even a big enough word for it (but secretly, painfully, awfully, it felt so good to make someone _afraid)_.

A lull settles quietly around them. Muffled traffic. The whirring of the tape recorder. A shout from somewhere down the corridor. All the moments in between that don’t mean anything.

Gerry looks down at their hands. They don’t look like their own, but who else would they belong to?

“Leitner’s dead, by the way,” Jon says after a while, clearly trying to be casual about it.

They crack what feels like the first real smile in years, barely able to resist the urge to ask for exact specifics, like a teenage girl talking about a crush. “Good.”

Jon smiles as well, although considerably more nervously. “And I think it might’ve been him you, uh, assaulted.”

Time slows down and speeds up all at once. They have to swallow once, twice, a third time to even be able to open their mouth, their words scrambling. “What?” They have to force themselves to say it, digging their nails into their palms so they can can focus on something apart from trying to talk.

“Well, before he… before he, uh, died, he said he’d nearly been beaten to death by an angry goth.” He looks at Gerry, his smile less nervous now, his eyes a little kinder. “Which is you. I think.” A beat. Rain against the window. A tap dripping. Jon, nervously fidgeting, and Gerry, trying so hard not to cry. “Are you alright?” He asks, soft and low and _kind_.

Scuffs in the walls. Cracks in the paint. Brown stains on the ceiling. Traffic, tape recorder, distant voices. Metal against porcelain and an extractor fan and far-away sirens and the ticking of a clock and—

And they cry.

They just fucking _cry._

Faintly, they can feel Jon reaching out to them, pulling back and then reaching out again, and they’ve got their head in their hands just fucking _crying,_ their hair falling over their face, their eyes burning so much they start crying harder, which is weird in and of itself because they can’t remember the last time pain made them cry, and they can’t remember the last time they cried full stop, and their head is pounding, and their entire body is shaking so badly the headboard is starting to rattle, and Jon’s still there, hand half-stretched out towards them, and as they peer at him through their fingers, in between gasps for breath, he looks so concerned and so panicked they burst out laughing through the tears. It catches in their throat, making them choke on _feeling,_ and they feel more alive than they ever did when they _were_. Jon places a careful and meant-to-be-comforting hand on their knee, but the sound he makes when he discovers he can actually touch them and that they run at barely above freezing is so funny it makes them start laughing again.

They look at Jon, tear-stained and laughing and the most vulnerable they’ve ever let themselves be, and he looks back. He looks right back at them. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt at all.

When they’re able to take deep breaths without bursting into tears or laughter again, they say, “I think… I think I’m ready to go. I’m done. Hide my page, and when you’re out of here, burn it.” They swallow, hard. “Please.”

“I will.” Jon says, and they believe him. “Thank you, Gerard.”

“Gerry,” they say, hoping he doesn’t hear them, hardly realising they’ve said it, painfully aware that this is the last chance they’re ever going to get.

“What?”

“Gerard was what my mum called me.” They laugh, embarrassed. “I always wanted my friends to call me Gerry.” They look up at Jon. He’s looking back at them.

An instruction to get themselves a proper coat. A smile and a wave as the bus pulls away. A photo, carefully tucked away in a locket around their neck. A hand on the small of their back. A gentle nudge into the back of a taxi. All the little things they’ve held for a lifetime, all those tiny flashes of love. Jon looks at them, really looks at them, and they’ll hold that against their burned and scarred heart, warm and safe, into forever. (Mum’s icy hand through their hair never even came close; it was never love, only ever power, and she doesn’t have any anymore).

“Thank you, Gerry.”

There are tears in their eyes again, but they don’t try and stop them this time.

**Author's Note:**

> jonny sims said it's my turn on the comfort character (me? projecting? never)   
> most of the dialogue in +1 is from mag111, and the title is from 'since I was born' by The Elijah. you didn't hear it from me but that's definitely the band Gerry went to see. (and the timeline works out trust me on this one)  
> im on tumblr! goingfullkillbill <3  
> thank you so much for reading & i hope you enjoyed!!


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